August 12, 2024
30.5 miles, 5266′ gain/5466′ loss
I slept in until ~7:15am. Before heading out, I checked the Durango car rentals one last time, since they’d been unavailable last night. I lucked out and snagged a car rental for Friday August 16th for Durango to Denver. I checked out of my room, and went to the gas station for coffee and chocolate milk. I then hung out by the gas station exit trying to catch a ride. It was relatively quiet, and I didn’t get a ride for 45 minutes, until two CT section hikers gave me a ride to the trailhead 10 minutes up the road. I saw Ed from VA at the overlook, and Boston Chris too, who I’d seen leaving as I arrived in Lake City. I was hiking by 9am.
The first half of my day, I overlapped with a group of 8 women doing a MTB hut-to-hut trip, ending in Moab. Two of them, Brin and Ellie, struck up a conversation with me. They asked if I had enough food; I admitted that I hadn’t packed out quite enough food from Silverton. They dug around in their packs and gave me some energy chews and an entire homemade BLT sandwich! The 8 of them leapfrogged with me for ~15 miles, and it was good for me to have an incentive to push myself to stay ahead as long as I could and then catch up.
Thunderstorms chased me in the late morning, but didn’t catch me until late afternoon. I said hi to Imani and Aiden as I hiked past; they’re almost done too. I met Marcus heading north, in his first few days. I also met Dr Dre out to try for the CT East/NOBO FKT doing collegiate west. As the sun set, I saw an elk grazing on grass nearby the trail.
I stopped at 8:05pm when I found a very nice campsite nestled in the pine trees with a soft floor. I had an owl neighbor while I sat outside my tent and enjoyed that delicious BLT sandwich! I was asleep around 9:15pm.
Transcending Mountains 